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A short introduction to open access monographs

Background: open access in the humanities and social sciences

  • Most humanities and social sciences research output is in the form of monographs, whereas the sciences mainly show their output in the form of journal articles.

    Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash

  • A monograph and a journal article are very different, and therefore have different ‘needs’ in terms of open access.
  • Journal articles are usually written quite quickly and have a particular structure; they are written to fulfil a specific objective and are seen as a means to an end.
  • However, in the humanities the book (monograph) is the principle research output. These are written over a longer period of time and are longer and less structured.
  • The production of the book is the end in itself – its objective is to start a dialogue, not necessarily to provide answers.

The Wellcome Trust is the only UK grant awarding body to have made open access mandatory for monographs.

Open access and health

For this third day of open access-related blog posts, we are looking at how open access can be of benefit to healthcare around the world.

“…it is only through removing the barriers to access to global research that health improvements can be accelerated. Open access delivers free access to millions of research articles for all with internet access regardless or institutional affiliation or national GDP.” (Chan et al, 2009)

Open access and social justice

For the second of our blog posts for Open Access Week, we are looking at how open access as a means of social justice.

“Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1944): Article 27, section 1

Open access and the REF

This week (22nd-28th October 2018) is Open Access Week. As part of this, we are publishing a series of posts on this blog that are all about open access: what it is, why it’s important and what we can do with it. This first post is a short introduction to open access and why it’s important for the next REF (Research Excellence Framework – which you can find out more about here).